It is a coming out that is too discreet (therefore suspicious) or too loud (therefore hypocritical). Ideas considered too conservative. A social environment, too, too privileged. A gender (male) or a skin color (white), in the worst case. In 2024, the dating homosexual cannot live in a single-digit district, fight certain battles, remain silent about others, or even demand nothing at all. Ultimately failing at the bingo of the qualities required to obtain the support of the LGBTQ+ community. Otherwise, here he is branded a traitor to the cause, a puppet of power, or better: reaction. Latest example: the appointment of the young minister Gabriel Attal to Matignon, Wednesday January 9.
The foreign and national press welcome the arrival of the first “openly homosexual” Prime Minister, “the sign of a France which is progressing” (Release) and “unthinkable in France before the 21st century” (Times). Even the magazine Stubborn judges that “[lorsqu’une personnalité issue d’une minorité accède à une fonction sociale jusqu’ici inaccessible, c’est une bonne nouvelle en soi”. Fallait-il souligner, en premier lieu, l’homosexualité du nouveau Premier ministre ? La question aurait pu légitimement agiter les milieux LGBTQ+, à l’heure où de nombreux homosexuels demandent toujours le droit à l’indifférence – l’homosexuel est un individu comme les autres, un point c’est tout. Les bavardages militants ciblent bien autre chose. Gabriel Attal est-il suffisamment homosexuel pour être adoubé par la “communauté” ? Si cette question vous choque, c’est pourtant ce qui s’entend, en creux du discours de certains, pour lesquels il semble que l’homosexualité ne répond plus seulement à la définition d’une attirance sexuelle pour les personnes de son sexe, mais implique aussi (et surtout) un certain pedigree en complément. Qu’on en juge : “Attal n’est pas des nôtres”, dit un internaute sur X (anciennement Twitter) ; “Attal n’est pas un allié de la communauté LGBT”, tranche un autre ; “LGBT sans le G[abriel Attal]“Even Mediapart came up with an elegantly titled article.”The Prime Minister is gay, but not too gay“.
On which totems did Gabriel Attal stumble? On the day of his appointment, the Le coin des LGBT+ account relayed on X comments made by the new tenant of Matignon to Closer in 2019: “As for homosexuality, I have always considered that we could accept it without claiming it. I wonder if carrying it like a banner would not contribute to making it something abnormal.” The LGBT+ corner commented on this quote sarcastically: “Your famous ‘first openly gay Prime Minister’.” Understand that “assuming” without claiming is insufficient at best, and treachery at worst. Quickly forgotten, theouting forced from the young minister, in 2018, by lawyer Juan Branco, although widely denounced by the community.
Losers from the start
Would claiming higher, stronger, have been enough? March 2023, in the columns of Stubborn. Among other subjects, the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, is coming out. “They are trying to soften us up”, “are they making fun of us?”, some LGBTQ+ activists take offense on social networks. At issue: the timing, in full recourse to article 49.3 concerning pension reform, deemed “opportune”, therefore revealing a political exploitation of his sexuality. Both ministers were set to lose from the start. Their (presumed) ideas, their struggles, this is the basic problem. In a column published on the Mediapart blog entitled “[Premier] Gay Prime Minister: for nothing?”, the collective les inverti·e·s criticizes in particular “the architect of the Islamophobic panic of September, controlling the length of students’ dresses”.
Gay “for nothing”, because it deviates from the intersectional priorities now advocated by many LGBTQ+ movements, which would like any individual belonging to an oppressed minority to share the struggles of all others due to forms of oppression (racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia) that they have in common.
“White gay privilege”
If the homosexual deviates from it, he is immediately accused of benefiting from “white gay privilege” (the idea that white gay men would be privileged because they don’t have to worry about racism). Before Gabriel Attal, the ex-columnist of TPMP (C8) Matthieu Delormeau or the presenter of Big heads (RTL) Laurent Ruquier could have been blamed for this. In other words, as sociology doctoral student Trung Nguyên Quang wrote on[Gabriel Attal] behaves in the interests of upper-class white heterosexuality by passing laws favorable to them.”
Too bad if this reading objectifying the homosexual comes up against a plural reality: during the presidential election of 2022, an Ifop survey for the magazine Stubborn revealed that Emmanuel Macron topped the voting intentions among LGBT voters, followed by Marine Le Pen (17%), Valérie Pécresse (15%), Eric Zemmour (11%). Yes, what does it matter if, by playing nightclub bouncers, certain activists resurrect a filthy hierarchy of beings. No longer heterosexuals versus homosexuals. But the “good” homosexuals versus the “bad” ones.